Juliet "Rainbow" Starwer. Background expert. She likes to stay out of the real action. She only does the transport and support missions.

I'm Zack Dark. All-techniques. Squad leader.

We are the Athenians-II, a special soldier division trained to assist the Spartans-II. We use ÉNDJÀs battle suits that are similar to the MJOLNIR suits.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Previously:

"What the hell is that?" Shade said as soon as The Doom Puppy got into the cave with the cliff.

"Sending images to the Boomer now." Rainbow said. "My computer says that a whole fleet is having a war up there."

I shot the Seraph trough it. When I reached the surface I saw my objective of live.

Missiles rushed to reach the Covenant as plasma bolts did the same to burn the UNSC soldiers. Longswords and Seraphs doing spectaculars dogfights. Covenant dropships and Pelicans rushing to drop theirs thirsty for blood soldiers. Grenades exploding everywhere. It was a war.

"Oh, man!!! I thought that a war was tea time in Covenant." Boulder joked.

"Rainbow, take The Doom Puppy to the HQ, wherever it is. I'll try to scout you." I said.

"Roger, Shadow." she replied.

She fed fuel to the motors and the Pelican shot straight to the UNSC mass. I did the same, staying beside her.

Some Banshees tried to attack it, but my Seraph was enough to turn them into molten balls of metal.

When we got near to the HQ area, the turrets started to point at me.

"Wait!!! This is Rainbow, pilot of The Doom Puppy. Do not shoot the Seraph. I repeat, do not shoot the Seraph." I could hear Rainbow saying at her COM.

Suddenly, the turrets calmed down.

"Thanks." I thanked her.

When we reached the HQ we saw what it was.

A huge Pelican-like ship. It was at least 25 meters tall and had 200 meters of length and 120 meters of width and an enormous 3 store hangar were a Pelican would have its troop bay. It had machine gun and missile turrets all over it and had one single oversized Gauss turret on each side of it. It was a Harpia.

I landed my Seraph in it, and did Rainbow with her Pelican.

"Wow, I bet a million credits that 4 Longswords could fit on each store." Boulder said over the INTERCOM.

General Barkingson was standing in the middle of the Harpia's top hangar store. We reported to him what happened underground and he told us the situation of the battle. It started just a few minutes after we went down the lift hole. Millions of Banshees went down the hole to get us, so he ordered to bomb them, thinking that we were already way away. The missiles exploded the Banshees but caused the earthquake that almost killed us. Knowing that their Banshees were destroyed, the Covenant realized that their secret was about to be unfold, so they attacked our fleet. Realizing that our fleet was about to be obliterated, the General asked for help, both for ground and space support. A whole UNSC fleet arrived with Harpia carriers, called Harpia/C, like the one we were aboard, and Harpia gunships, called Harpia/G, with ammo and nuclear reactors, for its MAC turrets, instead of the hangar. As the Covenant was at disadvantage in space, they took the battle to ground, as they always do in this situation. Then a few minutes after the battle started we came up. Of course the Harpia/C brought a little surprise for the Covenant instead of herself. One Harpia/C was full of exo-suits, not like the ÉNDJÀ or the MJOLNIR; it was more like a three meter tall humanoid robot with a space in the belly for a pilot, guns instead on and under the arm part that connects the hand with the elbow, no head, jet packs and tank-like wheels on the inside of the feet. The Exo-skeleton Personal Unit or EPU. Most of them were in the battle, but a few were left in the hangar we were standing.

"They're here because not all the Marines are qualified to use them. I'm sure you guys are a hell qualified for them." Explained the General. "Now I each one of you using that suit and winning this battle for me."

"Sir, yes, sir!!!" We replied.

"Thank you, sir, but I prefer staying with The Doom Puppy and rescue the wounded, sir." Said Rainbow.

"You have my permission to do that, soldier." Said the General.

"Sir, yes, sir."

I chose the EPU with a darker tone of color than the others, than took a spray can and wrote on its shoulder: Oracle of Darkness.

The twins took the bigger ones and named them Golem I and Golem II.

Number 6 took the fastest and sprayed on it a large 6 in a green circle.

Grip took the lightest and named it Cap'n'Hook.

Shade took the strongest and named it LAAG.

Rainbow took her Pelican heard a call on her radio, gave us a good luck and went away.

I equipped the Oracle of Darkness with a machine gun and a flamethrower on one arm and a machine gun and a TQSLv Missile launcher, the one the twins took to the pay back time, on the other.

Shade equipped the LAAG with a sniper gun and a machine gun on one arm and Gauss rifle with scope lens on the other.

The Golems were equipped with a missile launcher and a heavy machine gun on each arm.

Cap'n'Hook was equipped with a machine gun and a tow cable on one arm and missile launcher and tow cable on the other.

The 6 was equipped with a Plasma Rifle and a grenade launcher on one arm and a heavy Gauss rifle on the other.

We entered them. The ÉNDJÀs automatically connected themselves to the EPUs. My HUD's ammo bar was substituted by a status bar of my EPU. It showed the shield bar, the heat bar (if it goes to high the EPU will automatically shut down to cool itself) and the jet pack energy bar (it regenerated at the same rate as the shield).

I shot my EPU forward at the maximum speed the wheels could give me. I reached the end of hangar. I kept running and jumped at the edge. I did a back flip and perfectly landed 15 meters lower. The others did the same, except for the twins who landed in a ground cracking stomp. The stomp made a small earthquake that broke ours shields

"Hey, that's kind of useful." Said Rock, while our shields recharged.

We raced in the middle of human installations to go to the battlefield. I distracted a little bit and almost turned into wallpaper, as we were at 125km/h. When we finally reached the main exit, from where thousands of Scorpions, Pumas, Rocket Hogs, Gauss Hogs and Troop Hogs made their way out of the camp, we saw our real situation. The Covenants were at five kilometers from our camp and their base was at least twelve kilometers from ours. We had to cross the battlefield, the Covenants that were coming from their base and the ones inside the base in order to blow up their city-sized base.